purity of the goddess (and sins of Her children)
by discopolice
Summary: x-posted from AO3: The Eliatrope Council deals with a religious schism and a misinterpreted message. (formatting now un-borked!)
1. Chapter 1

These days, Mina has a scowl permanently affixed to her face.

It's not quite that she _dislikes_ the new faction that's cropped up, nor their leaders. They are all people with whom she has worked just fine in the past. The idea of harmony, among the Dragon and the Goddess, is a very sweet one; it even has its appeal. They both gave life, after all, and their complimentary aspects paint a beautiful picture of harmony.

It's simply that they are _wrong._ If Chibi's dreams and her prayers have taught her anything, it's that Stasis is not a force to be reckoned with: not something benevolent, not something that can be embraced. The energy of destruction will lead to just that: destruction. Their Goddess has told them through Her greatest prophet, after all.

She has tried for months to reason with them – and, of course, there are the priests who were on her side all along. _Harmony will come from unity with our Goddess,_ they say, _and we are creatures of Wakfu. We are created in Her image, and it is to Her that we shall look for our future._ Yet more and more, the higher priests turn to the Dragon for worship, speak 'balance' when they know not the word's meaning. At least, that's how Mina thinks.

(One time, one of them asked her: "But if the Goddess and the Dragon are one in love, should we not look to further understanding of the Dragon to unify with our Great Goddess? Isn't it distrusting Her Judgment to deny the Dragon's power?" She didn't have an answer for that.)

Mina prays a lot, these days. She likes to think the Goddess answers her – with a leaf falling on her hat from the maple tree above, with a little ray of sun peeking through the cloud, the brush of the wind like a comforting brush of Her hair against her cheek. She likes to think she hears Her whisper, quiet but powerful, against the grass.

Today, she prays as well, for hours upon hours. She does her exercises, lets Wakfu flow from her heart into her hands, tracing patterns of runes and flowers into the sky. She nearly _begs_ for the Goddess' help, for Her divine guidance in trying times. The Goddess may answer, but her child's ears cannot hear it. Still, Mina tries.

She cannot shake the heavy dread within her stomach, not with all the prayers in the world.

It's Phaeris who finds her, sitting alone in the inner sanctum of the temple, shawl drawn tight around her shoulders. It's chilly, after all, and she is a thin and small thing; she can only handle the cold for so long. He takes one of the robes from his shoulders – dragons can handle the cold, but their sisters should not _have_ to - and drapes it over hers.

"I know your conscience weighs on you, my sister, but there are some you cannot save," he says. Mina jumps and wheels around; she had expected solitude, _wished_ for solitude, but a sibling knows when the other is in pain. A sibling has an intuitive sense of where the other is, what the other is thinking. Phaeris feels Mina's pain as a poking pang in his lungs, as though someone's lodged a flail in the cavity of his ribs – and it pokes again as she starts to speak.

"I may not be able to save them, but perhaps She may. It was never my intent to do Her job, merely to send the lost to Her arms." Mina can't help feeling like a child caught swiping a cookie, and the blush on her cheeks can only be partially explained by the cold. She prepares herself for a well-deserved admonishment.

"Perhaps She may, but She does not issue guarantees," Phaeris says. Mina winces; her brother has this annoying trait, best described as Always Being Right. (Phaeris would say the same of Mina.)

"Then it is up to me, is it not?" Phaeris grits his teeth; his sister has this annoying trait, best described as Taking the Whole Krosmoz on Her Shoulders. (Mina would say the same of Phaeris.)

"It is up to them. What can you do if they will not seek Her guidance?" Mina looks unconvinced; Phaeris continues. "You have not eaten. You have barely slept. I know you have faith in them, Mina, and for that you are stronger than I, but you cannot go on like this – and if you do, I will stop you."

"And how do you propose to stop me?" she says. A dragon brother can no more hurt his sister than the right hand can cut off the left. Phaeris thinks for a moment – _with what can I threaten her, so that she looks out for herself?_ – but settles for an imposing look. "

I am your brother, and I have my ways."

There's a tense silence for a few moments after that, with Mina looking down to her hands, folded in her lap. When she looks up, it's the first time she's looked anyone straight in the eye in a week.

"You are right," Mina says, with a sigh. Phaeris extends a clawed hand to her, and she takes it. "Let's go home."


	2. Chapter 2

When war breaks out, it's not a surprise. Glip certainly _wishes_ he could say it were a surprise, but it was inevitable; two groups, both with ideals held tightly to their chests, will come to blows at some point. He's an old man, and he's seen all of these kids grow up; he's taught them all the ropes, shown them how to fight, how to pray, how to learn.

It's really a shame, because he never thought he taught these kids how to kill.

There's been a stasis explosion in one of their underground labs; three are dead. It's hard to tell, ultimately, where the wakfu seeping from their bodies ends and where the wakfu from the exploded stasis begins. It's not possible to identify it when it's like this, scrambled in an omelet of rubble and glass and flesh.

Glip knows every child that has grown up, though, their faces, their features, their quirks. Everyone in their kingdom has gone through his trials at some point, from the youngest on up. It is to him, then, that the grim job of identifying the bodies falls.

Stocky as he may be, he's short enough to get into the remains of the lab without too much trouble. It's just a bit of wiggling, a couple portals, and he descends into a dim, hollowed-out ruins lit by Wakfu and his torch. The sight inside is a disaster, and Glip wants to vomit.

There is blood on broken glass, blood on the benches, blood on what remains of the walls, and rock dust has settled on its congealed surface. There's not a sign of Stasis, not anymore; one might mistake it for a normal lab were it not for the imposing brass tubes, the machine that was constantly churning to _still_, but whose stillness now lets wakfu flow through. It's like nothing Qilby would use, nothing Chibi would ever design. Glip closes his eyes and sees a sea of aqua, feels Wakfu practically raining on his shoulders; he opens his eyes and sees dark red, gunmetal, and dull grey.

There are two bodies in the outer chamber, lying close, legs obscured by the fallen stone. Blood has seeped from their tombs, but it has dried and is sticky to the touch. One is a woman, older, what's left of her skin wrinkled and tanned; the other is a man, greying hair and eyes closed, tan hat torn off to reveal the empty skeleton of Wakfu wings. Their hands are locked together, and he tries to pry them apart, but their muscles are seized and will not budge. The half of the man's face he can see is in agony; the woman's face is fixed in a permanent, serene smile.

Glip recognizes these two as elder priests. Glip calls their names, and Mina notes them down; she's delicate at heart, not suited for this sort of work. She has hurt enough, Glip figures; he can give her a break.

There is one, though, who is no older than fifteen; what remains of him is a young boy's wide eyes, the scraps of a deep blue hat, a torso crushed by stone and glass. His fist is clenched; Glip knows this boy's a fighter, and that he fought to the end. He remembers little Alain, when he was born, the blessing that Mina had placed on him for 'good health and a warrior's spirit.' He remembers whacking the kid upside the head with his staff when he got too cheeky – approximately once a lesson, twice if it was a good day. He remembers arguments for sport and dumb grins, decisive blows and a firm fighting style, and that last spar where Glip _knew_ he had taught the kid well.

Glip had always told Alain his disregard for authority would get him into bigger trouble someday. It's caught up with him now, but Glip can't think straight enough to manage his characteristic 'I told you so.' Instead, he grits his teeth and calls out: "The last is Alain, the recent initiate."

Mina's eyes blow wide, and she bows her head. She had shown token respect for the other two, she had liked them and worked with them well enough, but this is worse; he was only fifteen, he had shown so much promise. She still remembers his tall hat, his hunting prowess, the snarky grin she'd only seen from afar. He was one of Yugo's friends, and the two would play-fight and trek all over this little world of theirs. It's never fun, losing a child, but much less when it's in such a violent way.

"It is a tragedy, that we should lose someone so young to this," she says. Her voice is little more than a whisper, and it hangs in the air like a thick fog.

_You're damn right, it's a tragedy,_ Glip thinks. Sure, kids need to fight to learn, kids need to get bruised and beaten, but kids never deserve to die early. The world will never see this child's light. He'll never get to marry, or have kids of his own, or fight those big fights he used to talk about. The history books will never speak his name; only the Goddess will ever know what he was meant to be.

"The little bastard will be back someday," he mutters instead as he emerges. Wakfu returns to the stream eventually, and his tenacious brand will be easily recognizable.


	3. Chapter 3

Chibi is floating in orbit, suspended by the small of his back above the atmosphere, seeing simultaneously everything and nothing at all. He sees the flow of Wakfu, ever-drifting from life to life; he sees flowering oceans and dense forest; he sees every creature that was, is, or ever will be, in something the size of the palm of his hand. He swears he sees Time, not linear but coiled in on itself, much like chromosomes tangle and wrap; he sees it intersect itself, a Klein bottle of lost scenes and serene whispers.

Before the gravity of it can hit him, it stops. Where there was life and aqua, red and yellow and deep violet spread across the surface and down into the core; the sphere below him is much smaller than their sun, but somehow much greater, and it spreads and fuses into its surroundings. All at once, it expands, to the atmosphere and beyond, embracing him, engulfing him, until time and space switch and his body is crushed into a singularity. He feels himself become no more than a cosmic string, stretched taut across the length of the Krosmoz.

He blinks, and he is at the edge of a stony cliff. Below, he sees Grougal convulsing, then biting his lip so hard it draws blood, then stilling as his Wakfu ebbs away. He feels the absence, even, deep in his soul – it's shooting and insistent, like a phantom limb tugging at its stump. He watches with a detached horror as a sea of aqua flows into an ocean of deep purple, the waves mingling and mixing until the grey, bloody sky falls in a deep crash upon his head.

There is nothing; he is alone, standing in the void.

_My child, be ever wary of the lake of Stasis. The traitor will lead you astray. Be watchful, small prophet… You must respond to the signs as you see them, for me._

Chibi knows, then, that this is a dream. The Goddess has shown him a vision, again, one which may or may not be inevitable; but he knows. He feels it deep in his soul that they must move, freely onward like the Wakfu of their bodies, and form a great shield with which they may protect their people.

With the thought, the world explodes below him, the enormity of everything in a sudden pulse, and he wakes up to sheets soaked in cold sweat.


	4. Chapter 4

The airy temples of the Goddess are dark at night, and cold like the stone used to build them. There are lines of Wakfu, but they have dimmed with time, and their shadows are more menacing than comforting. Once, they were peaceful, but now Qilby thinks he can hear things – echoes of bickering priests, of their leaders yelling, though their voices stay calm. He hears rustling, a thud, an explosion, screams.

It is his imagination, of course, running wild. The only voices here are the Six of the Council, minus young Nora, and Her wind whistling through the windows.

Someone has dragged a fire-pit into the center of the temple; it's burning bright enough to illuminate the book Mina holds, the dark shadows on Glip's face. It's snowing hard outside, after all, and even their layers of wool coats won't keep them warm all night. They have enough wood to last as long as this meeting goes – it might be days, it might be a few minutes, but there is no way of knowing.

The meeting's a circle, but there is a clear head – their prophet-king, Chibi, sitting tall and straight. This Chibi may only know fifty-two years, Qilby thinks, but these days his face knows far more: it's a landscape of premature wrinkles and skin paler than it should be, with bags under his eyes and lips pressed thin. His sclera have gone red with exhaustion. Still, the king clears his throat, and all go quiet.

"I don't think it needs to be said what this meeting is about." Chibi's voice is a little hoarser than usual, and Qilby's able to easily place it as the voice he has after he's been yelling. He wonders if Chibi screamed into his pillow the night before after a terrible dream, if anyone had come to comfort him or if he had suffered alone. Qilby should feel smug about it – for all the pain he's had over the years, should they not share it? – but deep sympathy squashes those thoughts.

"It is of this- this war," Mina says, like it's a curse that speaking the name 'war' will bring to life, "and how we may end it."

"You all know, by now, of my 'dream,'" says Chibi. "Our Great Goddess has told me of a future of stasis, where these great lands of ours have turned to a vast lake of fire. I believe she was trying to tell me what must be done."

"What must be done, then, is to eliminate them - the… 'Traitors,' as she put them." A short man Glip may be, but his voice booms, gravelly in that way of his; he sits as tall as possible, trying to raise himself to the level of the others. Even then, he has a way of defying spatial orientation, somehow looking down on the council while simultaneously looking up. "Our first priority should be to get rid of their underground labs. Once those are gone, their morale should be sufficiently broken."

"You say this realizing it will result in casualties, some innocent?" says Mina. Her eyes search for an out, then get that nervous look an animal gets when there is none.

"Reason has failed us," Chibi replies. "We have no other choice."

The air is solemn, and silence settles heavy. Qilby's face sets into a scowl quite like the others', but his is less teary-eyed and more vein-bulging-from-temple, more squinting-in-anger. He is no patient man, but he waits for the correct moment. If he is to speak heresy, he will damn well choose the right moment to do it.

"But that's not right—" It's Yugo who speaks up first. His voice is hesitant, a little shaky; it's the first time he's ever been let in on the true secrets of their Council. (Chibi was worried about letting him in on _this_, but Mina reminded him that Yugo has a birthright. No matter how you raise a child, they must see the reality of the world someday.) He doesn't _really_ want to cause a stir; he just wants to save innocents who committed the tiny crime of disagreeing. Yugo's never had to make a decision like this, never had to sentence someone to eternity; he is terrified.

"How is it wrong to protect ourselves and our Goddess? Tell me," Glip says. He's abrasive, as always, and Qilby's very tempted to punch him in the mouth and get all of this over with. (Mercifully, he doesn't. A man must learn mercy when he has lasted lifetimes.)

"You can't murder people because they disagree with you!" Yugo stands, breath harsh with the rush of standing up to his elders. He's barely as tall as the top of Qilby's hat, but his voice rings clear. "You can't let all these people die!"

"Little Yugo, if we don't, we will _all_ die." Mina's voice is grim. "It will be as our King has prophesized." (It gives Qilby a creepy feeling how formally Mina refers to Chibi, even though they've been in bed for years now. Some women never break with tradition, after all.)

"Trust me, I wish I hadn't," Chibi says. His leader's voice has gone weak. Qilby would like to tell him about all the things he wishes he didn't remember, how pale Chibi's plight is in comparison to his own. Mercifully, he doesn't.

"So you see, then, the necessity of this—" Mina's cut off by a sharp growl from the other side of the room.

"I'm sure he does _not,_ because there _is_ no necessity." Qilby is sparking with anger across the fire, almost more heated than the embers spitting from it. It's the only time he's agreed with Yugo in recent memory, so _the hell with it_; he'll go all the way!

"You are surprisingly short-sighted, given your situation," Glip says, in that biting, matter-of-fact way of his. He almost looks bored.

"The kid speaks reason," Qilby replies. "You cannot kill scores of people over a religious disagreement; that's _absurd!_"

"This is not a religious disagreement, Qilby," Mina says. Chibi nods in assent. "This is a security threat. We could well die if this movement takes hold - in fact, it is almost certain."

"There's been a recent rash of stasis explosions in their labs," continues Chibi. "Some twelve have already died. How many more will it take? How many more casualties do we need?"

"You say that as you sentence people to death?" Yugo asks, but his question goes unanswered.

"The fact is simply that they are going to kill us all. I have tried to reason with their priests, but nothing has gotten through to them—"

"And what if they are _right,_ and your Goddess is laughing at us for our foolishness right now? Hell, maybe Stasis _is_ sacred! Maybe we _should_ be worshipping the Dragon alongside Her!"

Almost as soon as the words leave Qilby's mouth, an awkward hush falls over the circle. The wind makes a disapproving whistling noise through the arched windows, blowing the fire a bit to the side. Glip's eyes cast on him in suspicion. Yugo's eyes go wide, and he gets a deer-in-the-headlights look; Qilby suspects he was thinking similar, but didn't want to say it aloud. Chibi gives him a steely stare, the way he always does when Qilby questions religion, and Mina simply clicks her tongue.

"We are Her children, and She would have told us," says Mina, and – though they are the Dragon's children equally - the four pairs of eyes staring at Qilby tell him to speak no more of it.

"If we are to keep the peace, we must let nobody know. It will end silently and mercifully." Chibi might sound, to a bystander, like the confident king anyone would admire. He might sound resolute to the untrained ear. Qilby knows, though, the waver at the end of his voice, the little tremor that implies Chibi's trying to convince _himself_ more than anyone else.

"Chibi, we do not have to do this. We can settle this honestly, like warriors, like an honorable people," Qilby pleads, accompanied with frantic hand gestures. He's been able to convince Chibi before, and perhaps he can pull it off again; he's always been known to listen to reason. Qilby simply hopes that streak won't end now.

"And risk losing all of us?! Our people may die someday, but we do not have to die _here!_" Chibi yells, a fierce scowl twisting his face. "If there were an easier way out, I'd have found it. I've spent days on end trying—"

"So you _run_? You'll hide everything, like a coward, you'll lose all of that honesty you pride yourself on when it poses some _risk_ to you, just because of a couple of explosions and a _dream-_"

"_You take it, then!_ May the Great Goddess hear my testimony: this fool wants You to give him a glimpse of the future, this fool wants You to—"

"Boys," Mina warns, and on cue, both go dead quiet. "I'm inclined to agree with our King on this matter. If we let it be known, this conflict will erupt again and again, until it eventually spirals out of our control. We need to end this here and now."

"Of course you'd agree," Qilby mutters, and Mina acts like she never heard. Tiny battles aren't worth fighting, not with much bigger at stake.

"We've three in favor, and two not. I'd think our decision is made," Glip says. Yugo and Qilby both give him a dirty look, but Glip is used to dirty looks from children. He can brush it off, pretend like what he's doing isn't scratching at his heart.

"Aye," Mina follows.

After a long pause, Chibi puts in an "aye" as well.

"It is settled, then. I suggest we go for the labs tomorrow night, under the cover of darkness." Glip pulls a piece of parchment and brush from his bag, dips the brush into the ink, sketches out a quick map of routes. "We will descend through the back way, slip in, and cause a series of small explosions. Is anyone in opposition to this?" Yugo and Qilby both start, but Glip cuts them off with a curt "—Is anyone _reasonable_ in opposition to this? We have had our vote, and this war will end, whether you like it or not."

The meeting continues in a mess of arrows and sketches, and when it's all said and done, Qilby knows that they are sneaking in under cover of night. He knows that the labs operate _primarily_ at night, and that the casualties can be easily dismissed as 'accident.' He knows that after tomorrow night, there will be no more talk of the Dragon, no more study of the 'force of destruction,' at least for now. (He's known for a long time that Stasis can be exploded by agitation. He almost regrets discovering that, now, but the beauty of discovery takes precedence.)

He doesn't know the names of any of them, not their faces, _barely_ their ideas. What he's seen makes so much sense that he wants to start a lab of his own. There are so many things they could do, so many lives they might be able to save, with Stasis' power; if their Goddess puts Her trust in the Dragon, Qilby does not see why creatures of Wakfu cannot trust in its opposite. His chest shudders in anger - what could be accomplished, what _they_ could be, if only they took the blinders off!

_And, in retrospect, this is where it starts - the churning of resistance, the discontent of the irreligious man._

"I decree that we will keep no record of this, then," Chibi says. "It will fade into the past, as everything does. We must ensure this never happens again, and we must do it while we remember the pain—"

"You have forgotten about me, again, I see." Qilby sneers. "I will remember this war – I will remember it until the end of time, until you fools destroy yourselves. What is to say I won't let the truth slip out, if someday it may save our people? Purely by _accident_, you know."

Chibi gives Qilby a significant look, then, and he searches to read it. The bags under his eyes tell of fatigue; the scowl quirked on his lips betrays frustration. There's a tinge of something else in his eyes, though: he is tearing up from sorrow. It's a lot like the face Qilby used to see when he won a fight with the prophet, but it's different. Nobody has _won_ here.

"Your keep more secrets than truths, Qilby. What is one more to the pile?" Qilby wants to tell them that he is not involved (he isn't; this is far before he's so frustrated as to make his own stasis lab, though he can't say he's not entertained the thought). He wants to tell them that they are being hypocrites, that they barely even know their own origins. He wants to say that their Goddess is a farce without her other half. He wants to curse, he wants to scream about everything their memories are missing.

Instead, he turns on his heel and flings up a portal, stalking off into the snow. Chibi calls the meeting adjourned, but Qilby is not there to hear it.


	5. Chapter 5

It's almost comical, how quickly the labs disappear. The battle lasts mere seconds; all they need to do is agitate the Stasis they hold in little glass tubes, and it explodes in an instant. Wakfu breathes out from their rubble tombs, as easily as they had breathed it in.

There is no stasis around them, and yet everything has stilled.

"They _died_," Yugo says, almost in a whisper. "So many people are gone." Chibi is holding him close, stroking the back of his hat in an attempt to comfort his little brother. Yugo is so naïve, so young, that it breaks Chibi's heart sometimes: he has to see this happen when he's only fourteen?

"It had to be done, Yugo. It would have been the ruin of our people had the labs survived." Chibi avoids eye contact as best he can, but eventually Yugo's dark eyes draw him back; he has spent the last two weeks running. He cannot run from his brother, though, the child who will always find him in the dark.

"You're not even talking about them like they're people," Yugo says bitterly. "One of my friends died in there. I'm never going to see him again."

"What was his name?" Chibi knows it will hurt more to know who died, but he also knows it is his duty to Yugo to remember this child – so he asks, bringing up the best smile he can muster.

"His name _is_ Alain," Yugo replies. "

Tell me about him," Chibi says. Yugo looks for something to criticize, something to get angry about, but Chibi looks genuinely interested – and it's that which opens the floodgates on Yugo's emotions. Words begin to spill from him as blood spurts from a severed artery, quick and heavy and shaky, one tale after another.

"He's fifteen, a little older than me. He likes to hunt, especially, he took me out on a hunt once and we got this huge Prespic, it was like this big, and he cooked it for us afterwards and who knew, Prespic meat is pretty good! Yeah, it sounds weird, right? He's amazing at cooking, too, I learned how to make that one stew you like from him, did you know that? He just got initiated with me, and he has a really pretty girlfriend and one time when I was nine, this boy was picking on me and he _punched him out—_" Yugo goes on for minutes, and the stream of disjointed stories manages to press over his broken heart like a bandage. Chibi listens, laughs at the high points, gives sympathetic grimaces at the painful stories.

"—and he really believed in the Goddess, you know, but he believed in the Great Dragon, too, and he was just so devoted… I really miss him. I really, really miss him. It hurts."

"He sounds like a great kid." Chibi tries to smile, but it's a pained sort of half-grin. "I have an idea. Let us go to the temple tomorrow and hold a proper funeral for Alain. We will scatter flowers and remember him as he is meant to be remembered—"

"_A funeral won't bring him back!_" The yell from Yugo's throat makes Chibi lurch his head back, and when he looks up, Yugo is crying. He'd expected it, of course, but it still aches to see Yugo sobbing like this – such a strong young man reduced to red eyes, cheeks red with anger and streaked with tears. Yugo wails, and Chibi rubs his back in gentle circles, scratches his scalp comfortingly through his hat.

He doesn't know what to say, though. What is there to say when the blood of your brother's brother stains your hands? What is there to say when he blames you for something you had to do? Chibi knows he'd have taken the dagger if he saw it; the mere feeling of it still rends through his breastbone.

"Wakfu is not meant to stall, and everything, Yugo, will someday return to Wakfu. Even this." Chibi tries to smile, but there's a feeling of dread, of guilt, that wells inside of him. He can't stay strong for long, so he pulls Yugo's head into the crook of his neck instead, to hide the tears welling in his eyes.

Chibi is not a man of war, and never has been. He's much more for harmony, for peace with themselves and every other living being, for working amongst each other and with their Goddess to advance the Eliatrope people. He doesn't know how to deal with having blood on his hands, or having to keep secrets, or having to comfort a grieving child.

"I know." Yugo tries to stay strong, too, and eventually his sobs dissolve into little, tearless sniffles. Chibi sings softly to him, like he did when he was younger, and they stay like this until the sun dips below the horizon.

When they finally break, and Chibi returns to his study in the Zinit, he finds himself with quill touched to paper. He doesn't violate his own decree; he knows better. Instead, he writes a poem:

_The warmth of blood against the chill of stone _

_Two hands clasped, fingers interlaced, clenched together; _

_Night-terrors play out before me like time's slowed down _

_Tangles of violet and aqua and red flood through my veins. _

_Our Goddess is gentle, and I feel Her fear _

_As She hides low in the cracks of Her marble Temples, _

_But I reach for Her and She slips through my fingers. _

_Where do You hide, soul of our people? _

_I've sworn to protect You, but my hands are tied tight. _

_And so we speak hollow words, hollow like our chests _

_'__Only She can save us now;' _

_But we are too flawed, our people too lost _

_So to us, may You give Your Grace._


	6. Chapter 6

King Yugo is far too old for adventure now, but trophy heads from his hunts with Adamai still line the walls of his royal study. Nora remarked once that it was a bit morbid, to have all those beady eyes staring at his desk; Yugo replied that it was good motivation. They look down on him, now, to make sure that massive stack of paperwork gets filled out and filed into the appropriate folder on the appropriate bookshelf.

He's not working now, though, nor is he pretending to. Instead, he buries his head in a book, some long thing about their history, their great warriors and triumphs. It makes Yugo feel a little less adrift; on nights he cannot sleep, he can comfort himself with the stories of his family before him. He is not alone when there are so many brothers and sisters with his mind.

The door opens, and Yugo stands abruptly; he had not invited anyone in, nor had anyone knocked. He has to wonder who is here so late at night; is it Adamai, kept awake as well? Is Nora looking for him? Does little Glip need help with something?

As it turns out, it is neither. There is a shadow in the door, of a boy about thirteen, with long hair and golden eyes; his hat has long horns, but he can't quite fill them out yet, so they droop down over his shoulders. He's pouring down sweat, despite the cold outside, and there are deep bags under his eyes. Somehow, Yugo thinks, he looks older than he did a few weeks ago – but kids grow so fast, and who knows?

"I remember everything," Qilby starts, without the pretense of 'good evening, my king' or 'if you will pardon my intrusion.' Yugo raises both eyebrows. "I remember everything. I remember every instant! Every birth, every death, every time I-"

"So you did not lie to me, that time," Yugo replies; Qilby bristles and stands up straighter.

"I remember the 14th of Janvier, in the year 3428."

Yugo goes rigid for a split-second, then braces himself with a hand on his desk so as to not faint. That one day, when he was still so innocent, when he stood up and yelled at the adults but it got him nowhere: Qilby was the only one who agreed with him, and Qilby was the one who stood up for him. Qilby swore he would remember everything, and for all the lies Qilby's surely told over the years, that was not one of them.

The old king tried so hard to block it out of his memories, and he succeeded for a while. Some memories are too painful to be brought to the surface. Here the kid is, though, and he's giving Yugo the same look the old man gave him all those years ago.

"I know you do, too." Qilby stares at Yugo, demanding an answer. Yugo's half tempted to walk out, leave the child alone in his study, but he cannot; some sense of honor burns at the lining of his stomach.

"I won't lie and say I don't," Yugo says.

"You've become just as dishonest as the rest of them." Qilby's words drive a stake into Yugo's heart, and he wonders for a moment – _is_ he as dishonest as the rest, for keeping this secret? Is he trying to protect their people, or is he trying to protect himself?

"Qilby, when you grow up, you will realize—"

"_Grow up?_ I've _thousands_ of years more than you! I've more experience than _anyone_ in this damned place, and you'd tell me to wait until I am _grown?!_ I've-"

"You will realize that there are things I don't _want_ to remember!" he shouts. Qilby wants to get into an argument so badly it burns his throat, but he forces himself to stay silent for another few moments. "Why would you bring that war up, Qilby? Who are you trying to save?"

Qilby can't bring himself to give more than a wounded look as the fight drains from his small body. So Yugo, too, has faded from his side; he is alone again. _Always alone_; when did he expect any different? He turns his head, shakes it a bit, almost as if to remove the mirage of a way out from his head.

"When did you become more jaded than I, Yugo?" he says.

"You answered it yourself, Qilby," Yugo says, in a way far too detached for him to direct at any other thirteen-year-old boy. "The 14th of Janvier, in the year 3428."

"So that is how it is. Our people mean no more to you than your own happiness? I should have expected no more from you."

"You know I did not mean—" Qilby is gone.


	7. Chapter 7

Qilby has tried to tell Mina, a few times, of the way things were. Secrets tire the soul, after all; they grind it to nothing, sand against the rock of everything the Eliatrope people held dear. He is an old man, but still a fallible man, and he can't keep himself quiet forever.

She smiled, in that way of hers (that way that says _I know the truth and it is not as you speak_), every time. Kind but dismissive words would flow from her mouth every time. Eventually, he stopped; it's simply not worth trying to convince someone who thinks she knows everything.

(Yugo doesn't remember. Yugo stared right into his face, in that defiant way of his, and called him a liar. Qilby was a fool to expect anything from that boy.)

The Mechasms are approaching. He knows it; he's gotten their warnings, he's kept them close to his chest. They should only be a few days away, now, at which point he will make his case to leave. It doesn't occur to Qilby on a conscious level that this may be his last chance, but he _knows_ in his heart that there's no time for half-measures.

So he ascends, into the Zinit, into the chambers where they so safely tuck away every lie. He leaves his words in stone statues; maybe the _air_ will listen to him! It's profoundly ridiculous, when he looks back on it later, but perhaps it is his way of atoning for his own sins. If he is to cleanse the Council of their lies, he must first admit his own, to himself and to the stars above.

_I will make us all true warriors again._

He challenges the King, that little boy who was so horrified at what their kingdom had done (_it was just a few short years ago, if only I could get through to him, if only I could make him feel the way he did_). There, on that spaceship, they battle until their life force is exhausted, until Qilby is sealed away and Yugo is dead and gone. What's left is a rozen and a manolia, set close in the ground but arched away from each other.

Alone, in a field of endless white, Qilby mourns for his people. He mourns for Yugo – if only he weren't so foolish, maybe he would have listened. He mourns for Chibi – for Chibi's lost trust in him, for a close friend, for things that could have been. He mourns for Mina – wise woman she is, he'd think she would be able to recognize her own hypocrisy. He mourns for Glip, even – that jackass, how could he talk with such arrogance and not realize he's putting the nails in the coffin for their own people?

He mourns for the children who died in that war, and every useless one thereafter. They were all right, and Qilby knows it now. He mourns for himself, the empathy he used to have; he's seen so many die that he doesn't care anymore, but he mourns for the ideas they've snuffed out. Such wisdom has been wasted, he thinks, because his brothers and sisters could not see it. He mourns for their common sense, their ability to think, to chart their people's future. He mourns for plans that could have been laid, places they could have explored had they not shut their minds so tightly.

He doesn't mourn for Nora. He knows who taught Nora, he knows that Nora is the only one who could possibly help. He just hopes she is not dead by now. She's a tenacious one, though, and almost nothing can slow her down; one time, she fought a great Kralove and bled all over the place, but she didn't limp home until it was thoroughly dead. He's proud of her. He trusts her.

_Nora, my ward, my child, you are the only one who can save us now._


End file.
